Which IDE do i use from a complete newbie

[Abbey Samuel]

How to get the IDE to use,i'm a complete newbie and i've tried to download textpad but it couldn't be downloaded.I strongly need help.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Welcome to the Ranch.

Which operating system are you using? If Windows, I would suggest you try JCreator. If you use the freeware version, you can use it as if it were a text editor, with additional benefits like syntax highlighting and bracket matching. It takes 3.2MB to download as a .zip.

There are other larger IDEs (NetBeans and Eclipse) but I think a beginner has enough to learn with the Java without having to learn the IDE as well.

CR

[rohit leeta]

I recommend you to try JCreator, Netbeans and Eclipse then select the one which looks more familiar to you. There are lots of parameters here and you should select best one yourself imo. Later you can switch to other ones if needed.

And personally, i suggest Netbeans.

[Ulf Dittmer]

I would advise not to use an IDE at the beginning. They have a definite learning curve (in addition to learning Java itself), and they obscur some concepts that are important to understand.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Agree with Ulf Dittmer. When you are just trying to learn Java, you don't need the extra effort of learning what the twenty-something options in the "File" menu for Eclipse mean.

I meant that you can use JCreator as if it were a text editor. Open a new Java file in JCreator, edit it, click the "save" button, then use a command prompt set to the same directory to compile the file. Even if you are using it as a glorified text editor it does nice things like pairing off () [] and {} automatically.

[Srikanth Ramu]

You can also look at http://www.netbeans.org/

[Ulf Dittmer]

Originally posted by Srikanth Ramu:
You can also look at http://www.netbeans.org/

Didn't Campbell and rohit already suggest that?

[Srikanth Ramu]

Oh am sorry I missed it.

[Abbey Samuel]

Thanks Guys,already i'm using textpad is that really advisable or should i better switch on to Jcreator as you advised.I have a lot from supposed expert who have tried to point out that for a beginner textpad is the best.

[Jenson Chew]

Originally posted by Abbey:
Thanks Guys,already i'm using textpad is that really advisable or should i better switch on to Jcreator as you advised.I have a lot from supposed expert who have tried to point out that for a beginner textpad is the best.

Textpad is enough for a beginner I supposed. For me I use notepad, simple enough =) Still learning and reading a lot of stuff on Java.

[Mark Dexter]

I am an experienced programmer but was totally new to Java and OOP. I found BlueJ very helpful in getting started with Java / OOP. It's not something you would use for any production work, but it is great at helping you visualize what's going on when you create objects, etc. It is free and there is a good "getting started" tutorial.

Once I was somewhat comfortable with basic Java and basic OOP concepts, I switched to Eclipse. It's a little more to learn, but it is MUCH more productive when you are actually starting to write code. It's also very helpful when looking at example code from other sources. It's a little intimidating to start, but I think well worth the effort.

I haven't used other IDE's or editors, so I can't comment on those. Hope this helps. Mark Dexter

[David O'Meara]

"Abbey",
Welcome to the JavaRanch.

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Display names must be two words: your first name, a space, then your last name. Fictitious names are not allowed.

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thanks,
Dave

[David O'Meara]

The thing to be wary of, as a beginner, is to distinguish 'learning Java' from 'learning the IDE'. This is why I generally recommend Textpad-plus-syntax-highlighting rather than a fully blown IDE.

I also see advantages in spending some time manually managing imports, method and field names etc, as debugging code is more than just a character building experience

There are, as always, strong reasons not to do learn in this way, but again I recommend making sure your time is spent 'learning Java'.

[arulk pillai]

I would suggest you to use textpad for a month or so and when you are familiar with it move on to eclipse (free download) or NetBeans. My preferred choice is eclipse. RAD (IBMs Rapid Application Developer) is eclipse based. Alsi IMO, it is easy to learn.

[Michael Raymond Jr.]

Originally posted by Bushe Abbey:
How to get the IDE to use,i'm a complete newbie and i've tried to download textpad but it couldn't be downloaded.I strongly need help.

the textpad downloads work, but the first mirror on their site downloads a broken file. try using a different mirror.

[Dinesh Arora]

Hi,

Try Crimson editor or editPlus. They are small and you do not to go back and forth between command prompt to compile and run your code and check the output.

Thanks,
Dinesh

SCJP 1.4

[Jinny Morris]

I'm also completely new - in my case, to both Java and to object orientation. I have tried NetBeans and think that it's quite lovely, but it does lots of things for me that I don't understand but think I should understand before I start relying on an IDE. So I'm using emacs (which is also free). Even though I don't know very much about all the neat things you can do with emacs, I like it better than Notepad because it will pretty-format my source code for me. It's not really a pain to switch back and forth between the editor and the command shell for compilation; I just keep both open on the desktop.